IRS managers are inconsistent in watching for over-age correspondence, creating a burden for taxpayers who must wait to obtain assistance and, in some cases, receive refunds, according to an audit. In addition, such delays can result in the IRS unnecessarily paying interest to taxpayers, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration said.
Over-aged correspondence from taxpayers—which the IRS defines as anything not resolved within 45 days–has steadily increased from 40 percent in fiscal 2012 to 49 percent in 2015, the report said, noting that customer surveys show that taxpayers are dissatisfied with the length of time the IRS takes to resolve their cases.
The IRS has taken some steps in response to earlier IG recommendations to develop a consistent process to ensure that managers complete their reviews of correspondence over-age reports, it said. These include actions to improve correspondence inventory management, a program designed to close as many cases as early as possible to reduce inventory and improve the timeliness of case resolutions, and a consistent process for monitoring over-age reports.
“Despite these actions, the percentage of over-age correspondence continues to increase. This results, in part, from some managers continuing to not follow internal guidelines that require the use of over-age reports to monitor and reduce inventory,” it said.
The IG recommended that the IRS ensure that managers provide and receive annotated over-age reports from their employees on a weekly basis. It said the IRS agreed with both recommendations and plans to assess current procedures to develop a consistent process related to the over-age reports.
